Family Matters
by AgentNerd
Summary: Caroline is caught trying to feed her ballet slippers to the elephants. Phillip is going to get to the bottom of why.


Phillip was running late. He had agreed to spend some time with the Barnum girls that day while their mother attended to some appointments only to be caught off guard by some last-minute paperwork that needed to be turned into the bank at the end of the day. Meanwhile, the girls had been dropped off at the circus almost twenty minutes ago, and Phillip still hadn't left his office. He knew they were in good hands with Lettie, but he'd been looking forward to seeing them and was frankly sick of filling out forms. His pen skated across the paper, finishing up the last signature needed when a sudden knock sounded at the door. With a called out, "Come in!" Lettie entered seconds later, the children nowhere in sight. She started with no preamble.

"Phillip, I think you need to come have a chat with Caroline."

He set his pen down and stood up from his chair, finally finished and eager for the chance to leave. Still, Lettie's tone was a cause for concern, and Phillip frowned slightly. "Is everything alright?"

"I took my eyes off her for a few minutes and she managed to sneak away to the animal pens on her own. I've never seen that girl break a rule in my life, and she's okay, but Phil, she looked so _troubled_. She wouldn't say why she did it, and now she's refusing to talk to anyone. But she adores you…"

"…so maybe I can get her to talk," Phillip finished. "Where is she now?"

"Downstairs. The others are keeping an eye on both of them right now."

Phillip made his way across the office, opening the door and allowing Lettie to exit first while he followed close behind. Both girls had been down since their father left to tour with Jenny Lind, but he'd never expected either of them to act out—they had always been angels. Something was wrong, and Lettie was right—Caroline adored him in a way he didn't feel he completely deserved. Hopefully, that would be enough to get her to open up.

He and Lettie made their way into the main rehearsal space downstairs, where Charles, Chang, Eng, and Constantine appeared be teaching Helen poker at a card table set up in the corner of the room. The four of them seemed to be letting the young girl win, if the giant pile of candy "chips" in front of her cards was anything to go by. Phillip let it be. He turned his attention instead to Caroline, who was seated on a stool on the other side of the room. Her arms were crossed, a displeased expression on her face and her ballet shoes were lying carelessly on the ground beside her.

"I told her to stay put there until you came down," Lettie said quietly to him as they approached. She sounded unsure about the choice, but Phillip squeezed her shoulder in reassurance.

"Thank you, Lettie, I can take it from here."

The woman nodded and paused in her tracks, choosing to hover from a distance as Phillip walked right up to Caroline. The little girl's gaze was planted firmly on her feet, though she snuck the briefest glance up at Phillip as he approached.

He crouched down to be more at her level. "So young lady, I heard you visited the animals without an adult. You know that's not allowed."

She said nothing. He tried again.

"Breaking the rules isn't like you. Is something wrong?"

Still no response.

"Come on Caroline, you know you can talk to me."

The bubbly girl had never been this quiet in the entire time that Phillip had known her. He was starting to get worried. "You won't be in trouble if you tell me why you did it. I won't even tell your mother."

That caught her attention. With narrowed eyes, she finally looked at him and said in a quiet voice "Promise?"

The corner of his lip turning up, he extended a hand out to her, little finger extended. "Pinky promise."

Her attitude turned solemn as she wrapped her pinky around his, and only once their hands released did Phillip dare speak again. "So, what's going on?"

She started kicking her feet against the legs of the stool absentmindedly as she wrung her hands together in a nervous fashion, "I wanted to feed my ballet slippers to the elephants."

Phillip frowned, "Now why would you do that? You love ballet…and don't you have a recital tonight?"

"I hate ballet!" she said strongly, face flushing pink with emotion, "And I'm not going to the recital!"

"Woah now, where is this coming from? You've been working so hard for weeks—"

"I don't care! I'm not going! I'm done with ballet!"

"Calm down," Phillip said soothingly, placing his hands on her shoulders to steady her. He waited until her rapid, angry breathing evened out before continuing. "Why don't you like ballet anymore?"

"The other girls are stupid," Caroline huffed.

"That's not a very nice thing to say."

"Well it's true," she affirmed, shrugging off Phillip's hands and crossing her arms. "They're stupid, and they say the meanest things—"

She stopped suddenly, like she had said too much.

"What are they saying to you?"

Her eyes were on her shoes once again.

"Caroline, look at me," he said firmly, a sour feeling pooling in his gut. When she finally met his eyes once again, he was alarmed to see tears forming.

"That daddy doesn't love me. That's why he left, and he's never coming back. That I don't belong at the ballet school because I'm a freak and my family is a bunch of freaks and I'll never fit in and I'm no good…"

She was cut off as Phillip wrapped her in his arms, her face buried in his shoulder as she cried. He held her close for a long few minutes, ready to stay that way for as long as she needed. Eventually, she calmed down, and he loosened his grip enough to be able to see her face again.

"You're not a freak. You're beautiful, and special, and talented. And so is the rest of your family. If the other girls can't see that, then they've got something wrong with them."

Caroline sniffed.

"And your father loves you more than life itself. He'll be back sooner than you think," Phillip hoped that wasn't a lie. Hoped that Phineas was the good man he first believed him to be and would realize the error of his ways soon. Because as he looked at the red, tear-stricken face of this little girl, Phillip had never been more angry with the man in his life.

"I know," Caroline sniffed, "but it still hurts when they say it. It's just…I miss him so much!" a fresh round of tears was forming in her eyes, and Phillip pulled her in for another hug.

"What if I came to your recital?"

She pulled back and wiped the tears from her face with the back of her hand. "But what about the circus?" There was a show that night, but Phillip would figure it out.

"Don't worry about the circus. It'll be just fine. But would you do the recital then? For me? I want to see you dance circles around all those other girls."

A small smile appeared at the corners of her lips for the first time, "Okay."

Phillip grinned, "I can't wait. Now, why don't you take your sister and go get cleaned up, and then I'll take you both out to lunch," his voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper, "and maybe if you don't tell your mother, we can get ice cream after?"

"Yes!" Caroline said excitedly, finally starting to pull out of her slump. She hopped down from the stool and raced over to the poker game, drawing her sister away with a quick few words. Phillip watched with fondness as they left out of the room hand in hand. His mind was racing with everything that had just happened, and it was only Lettie's voice nearby that pulled him out of his musings.

"So, is this a ticketed thing, or do we just show up?"

…

Caroline Barnum sat in a chair backstage, nervously glancing at the clock on the wall every other minute, waiting for places to be called. She was trying desperately to ignore the other girls across the room who kept giggling at her and shooting nasty looks amidst their whispering but was only partially succeeding. Finally, her teacher told them to take places. As Caroline moved to her starting position, one of the other girls passed roughly by her.

"Watch it, freak."

Caroline felt the tears well up as she stumbled, but did her best to force them back down. She just needed to get through this performance. For Phillip and her family. She could do that.

As the curtain rose onstage, she took the beat of silence before the music started to look out in the audience, and was nearly taken aback. As expected, in her father's usual seat next to her mother was Phillip, smiling brightly in her direction. But on his other side sat Anne. Then W.D. Then Lettie. Then Charles. Nearly half the audience was made up of the circus troupe, dressed in their finest clothes with bright and encouraging looks on their faces. Not a single person was missing. They had all come out to support her.

A huge grin broke out onto Caroline's face as the music began. She danced with a renewed passion that she hadn't felt in weeks, determined not to let her family down.

After the recital, she was met in the crowded reception room with boisterous cheers. She pushed past the other girls who could only stare at all the commotion as she made her way to the entirety of the circus. Phillip handed her the biggest bouquet of flowers she had ever seen in her life ("From everyone," he said.) as she was clapped on the shoulder and congratulated by everyone in earshot. At one point, she found herself being hoisted up seven and a half feet into the air on Jack's shoulders as the troupe cheered her name. They left the reception, more like a parade than a gathering, showering her with praise and love. And for the first time, Caroline didn't care about what the other girls thought of it. This was her family; she wouldn't trade them for anything in the world.

…

And if the doors to the circus were shut that night with a sign tacked to them saying, " _Show Cancelled Due To Family Matters_ ", well, Phillip was confident in the fact that the only person with the authority to oppose it was hundreds of miles away. Some things were simply more important.


End file.
